This basement renovation was budgeted for and we had all sorts of ideas. If you’ve seen the
before pictures of the basement, you’ll notice there are pipes and wires everywhere. Taking down the entire ceiling and putting new drywall up to hides the pipes and wires was just not in our budget. I planned out the space keeping in mind that there would be the occasional soffit and box which would be built around what was already there.
The water pipes near the support beam were moved closer to the beam. This wasn’t a lot of work and was done within one day. The entire beam will be wrapped and hopefully look like the one below, just a little bit wider.
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home depot
The pipes within the laundry room and in the kids play section will be covered by a soffit. Near the closet we had some heating pipes that were moved into the ceiling. This will get patched up later. Some were also moved into the closet so out of sight, out of mind.
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| laundry room {pipes placed in ceiling} |
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| support beam {pipes and wiring brought closer to beam; to be boxed in later} |
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| support beam |
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| pipes in front of closet {placed in ceiling, will be hidden within a soffit in the closet} |
There will be another soffit along the wall in the kids play area. This will be above the window and continue as well into the laundry room. Once in the laundry room it will also have the dryer vent, along with some openings in case we need to clean it out.
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| play area with soffit |
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| laundry room {soffit for pipes and dryer vent} |
My favorite part of the pipe and wire hiding situation happens in this section of the family room area. This wall will have a long section of built ins all the way across. The built ins are 77.5 inches tall. The extra space on top will be a soffit running all the way across the room. The 5 separate pieces will be put under that and finished off with molding. It looks great in my head. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.
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| family room {soffit for pipes and wiring above built ins} |
The ceiling will then get a layer of skim coat in another patten. One that isn’t so obvious and doesn’t make you nauseous if you look at it too long.
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